Anthony Daly: Magic is back, but who's pulling the first rabbit from the hat?

In the week of a championship game in my time the build-up and all the discussion around the match really added to the intrigue and debate

Will Kyle Hayes be mobed back into the attack? Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile

HERE I go again sounding like a real auld fella, but before anyone raises their eyebrows or drops the paper, phone or laptop when I start mentioning the old days, I’m not even going to talk about hurling.

In the week of a championship game in my time, firstly as a player and then as a manager, the build-up and all the discussion around the match really added to the intrigue and debate. You had to rely on word of mouth because there was barely even a sign of a mobile phone.

In Clarecastle, you wouldn’t get 20 yards up the Clare road before some fella would approach you, with answers, never mind even the questions. ‘I heard Loughnane lost the rag in training and that a couple of ye are dropped. Is it true that ‘Sparrow’ made bits of his leg and that Cyril Lyons is in? I have it from good authority that’s the case.’ 

Half the time, lads were telling you complete rubbish, but the other half, they nearly had more accurate detail than what I’d have been able to provide.

It was a different time. The words 'social media' meant nothing. Twitter was associated with birds. There is information flying everywhere now but it would be easier to get the code to a bank vault than find out what’s happening with the teams.

Even the parents, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, siblings or friends are told nothing. At the Irish Examiner roadshow in Limerick on Tuesday, I got chatting to Donal Morrissey, father of Dan and Tom.

‘Well, how are things?’ I asked. ‘How are ye going?’ 

‘Ah, sure, you know yourself, we’re going ok.’ 

He was telling me as much as he knew himself because nothing gets leaked from a camp anymore. If it does, there’s hell to pay for breaking faith and trust in the squad.

There has been loads of stuff coming out of Limerick over the last few weeks – that Seamie Flanagan is out, that Will O’Donoghue and Aaron Gillane are carrying knocks - but nobody knows if any of it is true.

At the Examiner gig in Castletroy, I said on the stage that Limerick should go with Kyle Hayes at centre forward, especially if Flanagan is out, and particularly after the damage Waterford inflicted from hard running down the centre of the Cork defence in the league final.

TJ Ryan disagreed. He said there was no need to fix something that isn’t broken. But if you’re without two of the full-forward line that wrecked Cork last year, is it not somewhat broken?

Ok, Cathal O’Neill put up his hand during the league but nobody else really did. Graeme Mulcahy has been a warrior for Limerick for a decade but John Kiely probably doesn’t see him as a starter anymore.

Kiely definitely has some hard decisions to make, especially if guys are carrying injuries. Do you start that player now and risk losing him for Waterford six days later? Yet the two points against Cork are as important as the two on offer against Waterford, so it’s worth the risk on Sunday.

With Cork having a week off on the second round, they don’t have that same concern around players who might be carrying injuries at the moment. The main doubts Cork have had since the league final though, are more structural than around personnel.

Eoin Cadogan mentioned in these pages two weeks ago about the benefits of putting Mark Coleman up centre forward, but I certainly wouldn’t be that radical. I’d consider putting Coleman at number 7, not just because teams target him at number 6, but because he has much more freedom to express himself on the wing. I know Cork want him to be creative as a dropping centre back, but it’s easier to be the fall-guy in that position and I’d say Coleman would nearly be relieved not to have that burden on him.

They could play Ger Mellerick at centre back, but his form hasn’t been great either. Cork’s hands are tied in that regard though because they probably have a man-marking role in mind for Mellerick on Cian Lynch, who may start in the full-forward line in a roving role.

If Cork really wanted to get radical, firing Tim O’Mahony up centre forward would be worth the gamble. He plays a lot of his club hurling with Newtownshandrum there while he looked more of a powerful attacking player at U21 level than he ever looked as a defender. Tim is a brilliant player but he’s not convincing going back towards his own goal.

Kieran Kingston and his management will have thought long and hard about what they need to do but they won’t be going with any nuclear options after having so little time to prepare after the league final.

On the other hand, Kieran shouldn’t be getting unduly worried about Limerick either because they could bamboozle themselves in knots trying to work out what the All-Ireland champions might do. An additional element to that argument is that – aside from the league final – Cork’s form was way better than Limerick’s during the spring.

The league will always only be the league but Limerick can’t deny some of their numbers. They weren’t even getting off half the amount of shots they normally have at the posts. Their indiscipline was terrible. Can you sort out all that stuff in just a few weeks?

Limerick will be keen to show who are the kings of this terrain, even if Cork have all the motivation after last August’s nightmare. I would expect a Cork backlash, but from what we all know of these two groups, Limerick have the edge, psychologically as much as anything else. 

I think this will be a tight match but I fancy Limerick to shade it.

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WITH all the uncertainty around Limerick, Waterford have slipped into their spot as the team to beat. The expectation down there now is off the charts. When I heard Derek McGrath on a podcast recently, he was mind-blowingly confident.

The depth of their squad has certainly added to that belief, but they’ll need every ounce of that confidence to beat Tipperary. Waterford may have beaten Tipp in their last three meetings – league and championship last year and league this year – but last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final in Páirc Ui Chaoimh went to the wire. No matter how good or bad Tipp are going, they won’t ever fear Waterford. Even when Waterford had almost perfected their sweeper system under Derek, Tipp were the one team who were able to dismantle it.

For all the talk now about the players Tipp have lost from last year, I still think their six forwards are as good as any other side out there. If Noel and John McGrath can rediscover the form they haven’t always shown in the last couple of years with the county side, that could provide the spark Tipp need to blow this match – and the Munster championship – completely into the air. John is definitely the type of player who could trouble Conor Prunty.

The Liam Cahill factor too could also work in Tipp’s favour. I know for a fact the message I’d be transmitting around the dressing-room if I was a senior Tipp player. ‘Hi, this fella, one of our own, doesn’t think we’re good enough for him. We’ll show him we are.’ That stuff though, will still get you so far against what now looks like such a well-oiled and slick machine. If anyone told me at the start of the year that a Waterford half-forward line of Neil Montgomery, Patrick Curran and Jack Prendergast would be teed up to dominate the Tipperary half-back line, I wouldn’t have believed them. But it’s slicker they’re getting.

I give Tipp a chance but I can’t see their defence holding this Waterford attack. They’d nearly need three Cathal Barrett’s but they only have one. I’d nearly fancy Waterford even more if the game was on in Thurles, but I still expect them to win by about five or six points.

Every game is big this weekend but the match in Wexford Park this evening seems even bigger again for Galway and Wexford considering how poor both sides were in last year’s championship. Both sides seem to have a clean bill of health. Both will be keen to lay down a marker but I fancy Galway.

They have the firepower and the experience. So do Wexford but I think Lee Chin is the key factor here. He isn’t named to start and if he’s not 100% right, I see Galway having too much all over the field for Wexford.

Elsewhere I expect wins for Dublin and Kilkenny on the opening weekend. It’s hard to believe that it’s all kicking off now on Easter Saturday and Sunday. It’s even harder again to comprehend that a number of big counties will be gone out of the championship before May has even warmed up.

It will take some getting used to, but the drama over the next few weeks will keep us all enthralled until we start giving out about something else, or I start rekindling more stories about how good we had it in our time.

The reality though, is that we’ve never had it better. The standard and quality are absolutely brilliant now. Players have never been more skilful or better conditioned.

And I just can’t wait to see them weave their magic again.